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A play about attendees at a Silent Retreat? What would that look/sound like? What are the chances of my reading the article below a day before attending a week long Zen retreat conducted in silence? Reading about art is not the same as experiencing it first hand, but I think you will find this article/ interview of interest. It is about the playwright Bess Wohl and her play “Small Mouth Sounds”. Most of my blog posts have to do with the interconnection between the visual or performing arts but I’ve not written much about the dramatic arts. I haven’t seen the play but I’m guessing my experience of silence over the next week will be affected by this article.

A minute of silence onstage feels like an eternity. So imagine what 100 minutes of silence would feel like. That’s exactly what playwright Bess Wohl did when she set out to write “Small Mouth Sounds,” which makes its Los Angeles-area debut at the Broad Stage on Thursday.

Set at a silence retreat in the woods, the play explores the lives of six people as they struggle to connect, and find inner peace, without uttering a word. The play has a few moments of speech, but the only substantial dialogue comes from the person running the retreat — a bodiless voice offstage.

For a writer who admits to relying on witty banter for some of her best work, the play proved a dramatic challenge and a creative triumph for Wohl and director Rachel Chavkin, the latter fresh off the raves she earned on Broadway for her inventive “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.”

Cherene Snow and Connor Barrett in “Small Mouth Sounds,” which comes to the Broad Stage in January. (T Charles Erickson)

As part of a national tour that will take “Small Mouth Sounds” to Dallas, Miami and Philadelphia, Wohl talked with The Times about her process and explained why silence is sometimes louder than words.

What made you want to write this play?

The idea came when I was on a silence retreat. I had been — I wouldn’t say dragged — but encouraged to come by a close friend. I didn’t realize we were going to be in silence. I thought it was going to be a girls bonding weekend. I brought snacks and wine.

But on the first night of silence I simultaneously realized, “Wow, this might be fertile ground for a play.” I had this impulse based on observing other people and thinking they would be great characters to explore, but I didn’t know anything about them because I hadn’t spoken to them.

So the whole thing became this projection of my fantasy about who they might be. I got really interested in the way we project fantasy on each other all the time, and I was interested in engaging the audience in that process.

Did you do more research?

I went back to a bunch of silence retreats. I went to one with my mom, but we only lasted about halfway through. I just got deeper and deeper into this idea. There was a part of me that really enjoyed the perversity of trying to make a play where people don’t speak, and what that would be like. It was all a great experiment.

I started it in 2012, and there were series of workshops with actors. I wrote a bunch of drafts. My first draft, I couldn’t help myself and all the characters immediately started talking and breaking the rules. Then in the second draft nobody spoke ever, and that felt kind of false. What I ended up finding was balance.

I did a lot of workshopping — putting the play in front of groups of 20 or 30 people, so I could understand what information they needed to follow the plot. There was lots of testing with other people, which was part of the joy of a silent play. You have to see it in bodies and spaces.

What does the script look like?

The beginning is about 12 pages of character descriptions. I felt if I were going to ask actors to play characters that barely spoke, I had to give them enormous backstories to ground them. My hope is that the audience can intuit that there’s a lot going on beneath the surface. After that there’s about 40 pages of stage direction, and there are some monologues in the play. The other piece of perversity is that the character who speaks the most is never seen in the play.

I was interested in creating these obstacles in both directions. What is it like to hear and not see, and vice versa.

What did you learn about yourself in the process?

I realized how hard it is for me to personally sit in silence. The play begins in silence. You watch someone in silence for a full minute, which onstage feels like a very long time. So when I watch I go through a whole arc of anticipation and agony. Part of the project is teaching myself to slow down and sit in silence with something I made. As a playwright it’s hard to evaluate your work because the voices in your head are so loud. In part I was trying to quiet those voices.

I always think any kind of change or growth is jagged — but I definitely have moments now when I can access the quiet I didn’t have before. And then a minute later the voices are back.

How did you hook up with Rachel Chavkin to direct?

I got so lucky with Rachel. We had a coffee, and she had read the play and came to the first meeting with such a clear vision of what she wanted the audience to feel by the end of the play. She wanted them to feel as if they had been at a silence retreat. She said they should leave the theater in a different metabolic state than they came in with.

How would you describe the plot?

It’s tricky to put it into one sort of nugget because every time I watch the play, I see it in a different way depending on whatever I’m going through in my life. What’s interesting about a silent play is that the audience brings a lot of perspective. The audience can project their own experiences and ideas onto the characters.

The play is a lot about the question of inner peace. A character asks whether peacefulness is a worthy goal right now given the chaos of the world. He says maybe we shouldn’t be at peace in a world that has so much difficulty.

How do you feel about the cast that will be performing at the Broad Stage?

I have the greatest respect for this company of actors. Part of what’s hard about this play as an actor is that it’s impossible to perform without being fully present, because there’s no dialogue to coast on. You can’t be saying the words while thinking about the hamburger you’re going to eat at the bar afterwards. Being present is all there is.

Do you think the show will play differently in L.A. than in New York?

I’m really excited to see it in Los Angeles. L.A. has a great community of spiritual seekers and yoga practitioners and people who have been on a lot of these retreats. I wanted to make something accessible whether you’d been on a million retreats or had no idea what one was about.

I’m hoping that people in L.A. can see themselves and laugh a little bit and also engage with the ideas.

What’s next for “Small Mouth Sounds”?

This play is going to continue to tour, and that will be really fun to keep sharing it with people around the country. When I first started this play — as my little experiment, will people engage with this, will people fall asleep — I never imagined it would be a multi-city tour. It was such a tiny, weird idea. We had auditions where we just had actors come in and sit in silence and leave.

What’s next for you?

I have a new play that I’ve been working on that tries to look at questions surrounding climate change. I’ve been working on it for years and am figuring out how to tackle it. Hopefully there will still be a planet next season.

“Jim Drumming”, Photo by Ann Pirruccello.

Like most people, I am constantly running across written quotes, videos, podcasts etc. that contain ideas that I would like to incorporate into my life. Often these “lessons” are difficult to hear, let alone embody. About a year ago, it occurred to me that I might be open to hear these ideas if they were embedded in music that I liked. And, so I began accumulating spoken messages that seemed to fit those criteria and create music to help make these messages more “hearable” on my part.

Recently it occurred to me that the music I had come up with might be enhanced by including contributions from my brother James, who is an accomplished saxophonist and composer. Collectively we are known as “Wilson Bros/Shrink Wrap”.

The tune introduced below, “Ride the Sound Current”, is the first of a series based on my experiment that will be released at Art and Zen Today.

Here are some suggestions for listening:

1) Play the music when you have enough time to mindfully listen without worrying about being distracted by other issues.

2) Use whatever rituals you usually use when preparing to move out of the flow of ordinary life.

3) The music was especially created to be heard through headphones. Try to avoid earplugs, if possible.

4) As you listen, focus on your bodily reactions (i.e. sensations, feelings, emotions etc., whether positive or negative) rather than the meaning of what you are hearing.

5) If you listen to the piece more than once be open to having different experiences with each exposure. Try dancing while you listen!

Over time I have become increasingly interested in how listening and sound (and music) have been used in various meditative practices over the ages. This is no place for an exhaustive review but below the video link, I have included a number of sources below dealing with this topic for those who may be interested in exploring further.

To hear “Ride the Sound Current” click below.

BOOKS

Hazrat Inayaat Khan The Music of Life: The Inner Nature and

Effects of Sound and The Mysticism of Sound and Music: The Sufi Teaching of Hazaart Inayat Khan.

Hi and welcome to another edition of Art and Zen Today. Today’s post consists of more video from my Shuso Hossen Ceremony. We start off with Eyal Raz reading Rumi’s “The House Guest. This is one of three short stories read by Eyal during the Ceremony. All of them come from a tradition other than Zen but all convey the same depth of wisdom found in the most profound Zen texts. The texts of the other two stories read by Eyal are printed below. Following that is the second of my performance raps, which were intended as responses to the Koan I was given. It’s called “Master Bodhidharma, Bodhisattva Bodhidharma”. For more on the Shuso Hossen Ceremony and other topics related to Zen and art use the SEARCH option or click on relevant CATEGORY at the right.

Below is a link to a new video that was used in my Shuso Hossen Ceremony. It involves images of the Vista Zen Center and music produced by me and Central Florida’s favorite blues singer “Stoney” Stone. For more background on the ceremony, the video and Stoney, read below before watching.

About a month ago I published a post titled “Koan For Manoj’s Shuso Hossen” (http://artandzentoday.com/?p=4380). In that article I wrote:

In this ceremony a student offers his or her understanding of the Koan and fields questions from other students about the Koan to demonstrate their readiness to be considered a senior student. Usually, students are assigned to work on one of the traditional Koans that have been part of the training for Zen monks throughout the centuries in China and Japan. However, my teacher has decided to explore alternative Koans that speak more to Westerners living and practicing Zen in non-monastic circumstances.

The Ceremony was held on March 5, 1916 and many of my upcoming posts will either entail segments from the video recordings made that night or will be based on my experiences as a Shuso at the Vista Zen Center. The essence of my Shuso Koan (see below) had to do with how I would or could fulfill the Four Bodhisattva Vows as an artist. During the Ceremony I presented 5 different musical performances that I saw as answering my Koan. In addition to my presentations, about 15 other members of the Center also gave short performances displaying their understanding of Zen and their creative interests. So the Ceremony consisted of a full evening of poems, songs, stories, demonstrations and short talks etc.

Shuso Koan

I ended my portion of the evening by singing Sly Stone’s “I want to Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself Again” using altered lyrics that I hoped expressed my appreciation to my teacher and fellow students for providing a safe place to practice Zen.

A week after the Ceremony, my wife’s niece Elene and her boyfriend “Stoney” visited with us for a few days. They both are musicians and play together in various venues in central Florida. Stoney’s other band “Stoney and the Housebreakers” also play for events throughout Florida and have produced numerous CDs. Their album “Cruisin’ For A Bluesin’ ” was the recipient of the prestigious Central Florida “CD of The Year Award” in 2009 @ The Brevard Live Florida Music Awards.(See the band’s website: http://www.stoney3.com/ )

Elene and Stoney

Anyway, soon after our visitors arrived, I had Stoney in my studio singing the altered lyrics to the Sly Stone classic. The short video below incorporates the recording Stoney and I produced and is accompanied by images compiled for the Shuso Hossen Ceremony to display the talents and dedication of the members of the Vista Zen Center.

My guess is that most people answering this question would remove their headphones and provide the name of the bands currently cued up on their listening device.But based on some articles I have been reading lately, the question is somewhat deeper than that (more like “what is the sound of one hand clapping” deep).It points to how we respond to music (and sound in general) and trying to answer it can help us better understand both creative and spiritual practices.

It has been a while since my last post.It’s not that my left brain hasn’t been coming up with stuff to write (maybe I should call it my “Write Brain”).Rather it is that my right brain has been “compelling” me to spend time learning how to use the new music production software I purchased several months ago.I have spend most of my “creative time” playing with this program, happily trying out all kinds of wild stuff, not at all concerned about whether it will ever be heard or liked by others.

Much of what I have come up with in my experimental creations does not neatly fit into most of the categories used to describe music; in fact it is not even clear that it is music.So, recently the left brain started pestering me to find some sort of label for whatever it is I am doing. By the way, this questioning seems to be rooted in the basic left brain concerns about whether what I was doing was worthwhile or “good” or whether it would be understandable to others. Anyway, I started to do some research on the internet and so this, and subsequent blog posts, will be inspired by the reading I have done.I’ll be quoting and paraphrasing heavily from some of the articles I’ve discovered. And, as always, I will try to point to some links with the practice of Zen, where I can.

An article by Robert Worby titled “An Introduction to Sound Art” suggests that maybe what I have been doing is best categorized as “Sound Art”.(http://www.robertworby.com/writing/an-introduction-to-sound-art)In reality, it probably doesn’t matter how my work is labeled.At some point I may post some examples and let you decide what it is, but, for now, let’s look at what Worby has to say about “sound art”.I think his ideas are relevantto those interested in any kind of artistic practice or any kind of spiritual practice where one attempts to be more in touch with the senses.

Worby starts off by examining the nature of sound (it is extremely impermanent as you Zen practioners might suspect) and by differentiating between the process of “hearing” and the process of “listening”.According to Worby:

Sound is constantly pouring into our ears. Most of it goes unnoticed because we are not listening to it. Listening occurs when we become conscious of sound and connect with it. We hear it and we engage our intellect, our emotions, our memory and many other faculties. Hearing is a physical process, listening is a psychological act. And when we listen to sound we are beginning the process of generating meaning with it. If we are listening properly our curiosity is aroused and we might begin to ask questions about the sound; not just the usual questions about what produced the sound but questions about what we are hearing: How loud is it? For how long does it continue? Is it pitched? If it is pitched, how high is it? How low is it? How far away is it? Is it moving? In which direction? How fast? Is it changing? How is it changing? What is changing? And, if there is more than one sound, how many sounds are there? How do they relate to one another? How do individual sounds relate to the mass of sound? There are many, many questions of this type we can ask and, if we ask them, they help us to perceive sounds with greater clarity. This aroused perception generates more detail and raises our consciousness. We have more to say about sound and we can comprehend it in greater detail. All of this may, in turn, help us to generate feelings about what we can hear and it may help to generate meaning from what we are able to hear.(Underlines are mine.)

Worby goes on to say:

Listening is an art. It is an art just as composing and performing are arts. Listening involves action, we cannot listen and remain passive. If we are passive and uninvolved then we are only hearing. Listening is creative and it is this auditory creativity that has given rise to what is now called sound art.

Although Worby looks at a variety of historical sources of “sound art”, he pays particular attention to the work of John Cage, who expressly connected his art and his practice of Zen (Search for previous posts on this topic by entering keywords Cage or Duchamp).In general, I think, Cage’s work, even if he called it “music” rather than “sound art” can be seen as raising the kinds of questions that Worby says in the previous quotation are raised when we really start to listen to sounds.According to Worby:

Cage’s most notorious piece is commonly known as ‘4’ 33”’. It is in three movements (a very conventional Western musical structure) and the notation for each movement simply reads ‘Tacet’. This is the musical term meaning ‘Be silent’. Cage is asking the performer to be silent for three consecutive movements. The piece does not instruct the performer to ‘do nothing’ (a common misconception) but it does require the performer to ‘be silent’. During the first performance, in 1952, the pianist, David Tudor, indicated the passage of the three movements by closing the piano lid at the beginning of each movement and opening it at the end. Hopefully he made no sound. But there was plenty to hear. Four minutes thirty three seconds is quite a long time, for an unsuspecting public, to sit and listen. The sound of the audience twitching, coughing and nervously shuffling filled the space and sounds drifted into the auditorium from outside. Cage had outlined a situation in which sound could be heard but he had no control over those sounds. The conventional roles of composer, performer and listener had been completely subverted. It was difficult to say who was the composer or who was the performer or who was the listener. The listeners were making the sounds so, in conventional terms, they were the performers. The performer, David Tudor, was also a listener. The composer had no hand in crafting what was heard, this was done entirely by the listeners, so, in effect, they were the composers. Cage had turned conventional music making inside out.

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“Composing is one thing, performing is another, listening is yet a third. What can they have to do with one another?”John Cage

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From today’s perspective, the performance of Cage’s 4′ 33″ seems rather contrived and passé, much like Duchamp’s hanging of an urinal at an art show (Search for previous posts on this topic using the keyword “Cage” or “Duchamp”).Although those attending the first performance of Cage’s piece may have been shocked into pondering questions about the nature of sound and music, most people today would attend because it was the cool thing to do.However contrived they seem now, both Cage and Duchamp managed to call attention to the importance of the mental attitude of the audience and both had a profound effect on how artists approached their practices since then.I think that it is no accident that both of these guys were influenced by their knowledge of Buddhist philosophy and practice.

Cage with D. T. Suzuki

It’s not clear to me whether Cage actually used the term “sound art” to describe his work but the term has consistently been used that way by others.So, exactly what is sound art?

At this point it appears that the term “sound art” refers to a diverse set of practices (ranging from Dada nonsense poetry to recording of natural sounds at various sites) and there is still no clear distinction between “sound art” and “music”. (Below I have links to 3 short videos to provide some examples of “sound art”.) The term “experimental music” is often used to characterize musical compositions that veer away from conventional ideas about music, but I would be hard pressed to describe the distinction.In Worby’s words:

The multiple threads of sound art practice weave a fabulously rich tapestry. It celebrates the ear in a world that we mostly perceive with our eyes. Language, our tool for thought, is very much orientated towards what we can see. Sound art encourages us to listen, it sharpens the ears and the imagination and so develops what it is to be human.

Cage at the Piano

While any piece of music can have these effects, it seems that “sound artists” see the main goal of their creative endeavor as encouraging real listening.Whether someone truly “listens” to music or any other sounds depends upon the person’s mental set.Sound art, as I understand it, is designed to make it induce listening as Worby has defined it.In future posts I will consider the writings of other authors who have used the terms “deep listening” and “mindful listening” to seemly capture the essence of what Worby is saying.

Since Zen and other spiritual disciplines encourage practioners to be mindfully present and aware and a wide variety of situations, I would suggest that these disciplines share a common goals with much of what might be called sound art (this is most clear in the case of John Cage).In future post’s I’ll be exploring how music/sound can become a mindfulness practice and looking material suggesting that mindfulness practice can enhance our listening to sounds/music and that listening can increase our mindfulness.

Personally, although I can appreciate the goal of making me more active in the process of listening, I find a lot of sound art and experimental music to be rather irritating; I’m sure I would have been one of the first people out the door at the first performance of Cage’s 4′ 33″.Doing all of this reading and thinking (thanks left brain!) has led me to wonder whether I can create sounds that are musical and yet can raise listerner’s awareness in the manner that Worby has described.That is, can sound art be engaging/entertaining and still be consciousness expanding? Maybe it really doesn’t matter as long as I am having fun doing it (thank you right brain!)

Check out these short videos showing some examples of “sound art”. Also see my previous post titled “Border Music by Glenn Weyant”

Here is another Art and Zen Today Exclusive; a video of singer Mo King b’sperformance at the Grammys that was deleted because he was supposedly not well received by the audience.

You may never have heard of Mo King b and that suits the producers of the Grammy Awards just fine.Mo King b’s music was showcased in an earlier video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCiVNF-SfPA ) a couple of years ago and I was shocked to learn that his performance at this year’s Awards was deleted from the tape feed at the last moment.According to the producers Mo’s performance did not air because “Mo King’s performance was way too experimental and inaccessible for the Grammy audience”.Paradoxically, Gilbert Mothworthy, of the Dronington Post wrote “b’s music was shockingly imitative and unoriginal causing many people in the theater that night to fall into an altered state of consciousness”.Click on the link below for this never before seen video of King’s short performance. For best results listen in stereo, preferably using headphones.

To leave a comment, click on the white bubble at the right of the title. To make an anonymous comment, write “anonymous” when prompted for a name. You can also send comments to me directly.

Today’s post features a socially conscious musician/artist who raises interesting questions about art, music, social activism and spiritual practice. You will be introduced to Glenn Weyant in a couple of short videos. This feature is the beginning of a shift in my approach to this blog. Up to now, most post have mainly been devoted to exploring the interrelationship between art and Zen practice. In the future, I will not spend so much time with theory and focus instead on actual art and actual artists. There is so much interesting work going on out there, locally as well as globally, and I aim to make my readers aware of it.

I have always used the terms “art” and “spiritual” in the widest possible ways and will continue to do so in the future. To my mind, almost any activity can be approached as an art and so if you know of some art or artists who you think should be covered in my blog posts, please let me know. For now, enjoy the videos below. For those familiar with the work of John Cage, be sure to listen to the last part of the second video.

To leave a comment, click on the white bubble at the right of the title. To make an anonymous comment, write “anonymous” when prompted for a name. You can also send comments to me directly.

Over the past five years, The Vista Zen Center has helped support Soroptimist International of Vista with their annual event to raise awareness about the horrors of human trafficking. Two years ago, the Center organized an art show to be viewed during the Human Trafficking Awareness Walk sponsored by SIV (see video of the Human Trafficking Awareness Art Exhibit at the 2012 event at the Art and Zen Video Channel (click on tab at top of the page). This year I helped create a short video based on a Poem written and read by Kaye Van Nevel, who is the Chair of the Human Rights/Advancement of the Status of Women Committee” in the Vista branch of Soroptimist International.

Below is the link to the video. After that you will find a poem by Jon Wesick, a prolific poet who is also a member of The Vista Zen Center. You can find another poem by Jon in a post titled “POEMS AND IMAGES FROM FIVE VISTA ZEN CENTER ARTISTS” published in Sept 2013 (See the Archives list to the right of the page). Jon’s poem is loosely based on The Heart Sutra, one of the chants that has historically been central to Zen Buddhist practice. It also deals with the human trafficking issue and I think you will see why it is a perfect fit with Kaye’s poem.

This post starts off with a visual and auditory experience for you that will work best if I don’t provide any “up front” information.Below you will see a link to a short video that will provide that experience.It is best if you watch the video before reading on.

Now that you’ve watched the video, please take a moment to briefly let James, the artist, know what you experienced.It would be helpful for him to know what you thought or felt at various points in the video.You can provide this feedback by clicking on the bubble at the right of the picture at the top of the post.If you want your comment to remain anonymous, just write in “anonymous” when prompted for a name.

Below is an interview with James which I think you will find interesting.My intention was to find out more about how this particular artistic experience came about.

A&Z TODAY: Most of your current music, music videos, and of course your visual device, “The Adagio”,seem to tap into a sort of slow motion in conjunction with music.How did you get started along this line of thinking?

James: I can remember the circumstances pretty vividly.It was a while ago, probably around 1966 or 1967 when I was a music student at Boston University.One evening, a weekend night I’m pretty sure since I had nothing pending the next day, I was chilling out at my apartment with some friends, listening to jazz, mainly Miles Davis.One of my friends shared some weed, and I probably had had a few beers by that point in the evening.I think it is pretty common when “high”, either on just life or with the assistance of some mind-altering substance, one gets into a state of mind where he/she is somewhat removed from oneself; almost like you become an “observer” observing oneself.

Miles was playing “Solea” from his “Sketches of Spain” album.I was very much in the “observer” state of mind at the time, and looked down to notice my hand was moving very slowly to the music, kind of in an up and down fashion along with the characteristic“arcs” that Miles plays during his solos. ( If you listen carefully to this piece in particular, you will notice that he hits high points, then his trumpet lines slowly descend to a low point.He then begins to build the tension, and overall pitch, back up, etc. etc. )My hand was following that, the up and down motion, but also moving very slowly in a smooth arc, not at all as part of any of the rhythmic elements of the piece.I was hearing/feeling some other motion in the music that no one was talking about.It was not anything you could consider “rhythmic”.

Fortunately, I hadn’t partied too hearty that night, and the next day I remembered the evening’s experience pretty vividly.I thought about it off and on for the next several years, and in 1969 I built the first prototype of “The Adagio”.It was pretty crude, but it worked, and was my first attempt to capture what I had experienced, and something I could work with in more detail.

A&Z TODAY: In a previous A&Z article, you discussed some of the thinking that led to the actual building of the Adagio.

Yes, I won’t repeat that here again.Anyone interested can go HERE to read the article in your blog.I did go into some detail at that time about how and why I came up with using the sine curve to measure the up and down motion.Using a slowly rotating cylinder, that was speed adjustable from 0 rpm up to about 3 rpm allowed me to create a slow moving, continuously flowing arc of light across the viewer’s vision.

A&Z TODAY: At one point, you used Adagio in a biofeedback experiment.How did that evolve?

After I built the first Adagio, I spent a lot of my free time watching it while listening to music.I also began to notice certain patterns that might someday be of interest to music theorists.From working with Adagio and music over the years, several patterns have emerged:

1. Most music falls within several rotation speeds: roughly 1 rpm, and 1 rev. every 90 seconds. Some outliers do occur, for example Gregorian Chant which moves incredibly slow, like 1 rev every 3 minutes, and Bartok’s piece for Celeste, Orchestra – adagio movement, also crawls along at a barely perceptible pace.

2.Most music, esp. classical such as Mozart and Bach, has cadences every ¼ rotation. In other words, 8 or 16 measures of music usually equal ¼ rotations of the cylinder, or on the sine curve, at the 90, 180, 270, and 360/0 degree marks.You can get an idea of this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrnhYnNqjzU , along with a Mozart piece. Note that the Adagio is at 180 degrees rotation when the piece cadences at around 47 seconds. Coincidence? Maybe, but then maybe not.

3. Much good music (including Bach, Bartok, and oddly, Gil Evans – esp. Sketches of Spain with Miles Davis), follow the arch of the curve. I.e., it builds up during the first ¼ rotation, then releases down to ¾ rotation, etc. I have used these theories in my own compositions. This video you included at the start of this article, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isvcRjRauSU uses an ambient piece I composed that was constructed specifically for use with the Adagio. The rising and falling ball/”moon” follows the sine curve across the screen, with a cylinder rotation speed of 1 rev/90 seconds. Hopefully you get a sense that the music is moving “upwards”, during the upward cycle of the Adagio, then “downwards”, etc. That’s what I intended anyway.

If you work with the Adagio long enough, it can affect you psychologically. You almost feel a little “stoned”. I think it slows your sense of time down, and you begin to notice things that perhaps you never noticed before. Of course the study talks about the fact that it activates the right hemisphere, etc. And so that kind of ties in with the altered-state one gets from viewing the Adagio over a period of time.

Of course the sensation of an altered-state is what eventually led to the biofeedback study.I definitely noticed a change in how I was feeling and seeing things and I had several of my friends try it as well.They also remarked on a change in their perceptions, a sense of “time slowed down”.

In 1978 I was taking a few courses at Nova University in Florida, and also teaching some of the students there computer skills.One of the doctoral students, a friend of mine, Joyce Keen, became interested in using the Adagio as part of a left brain/right brain activation experiment she was proposing.She was able to get some heavy hitters of the time, such as Dr. Joe Kamiya, to be on the dissertation committee.Anyway, the experiment produced some very strong and statistically conclusive results; namely, that the Adagio, and music, reduced stress in the experimental subjects.The general conclusion is that the Adagio and music activated the right hemisphere, thus allowing the left hemisphere, which is the side of the brain that brings our “fight/flight” response back under control, to concentrate on that task.In other words, while the right brain was engaged, the left brain had available “down time” so that it could more efficiently address the stressors that were being administered to the subjects.A few weeks after the initial sessions, Joyce repeated just one session.Evidently the effect did not seem to diminish over time, as the experimental group still recovered significantly faster than the control group.

Some interesting non-scientific results also occurred.For example, one student swore she was being levitated in her chair while watching the Adagio.Another student that suffered from insomnia, said he had started sleeping normally again.

A&Z TODAY: The study was done a while ago, in 1978.What has transpired since?

Well, for better or worse a something called “life” got in the way of my doing much else with it since that time.I got off on a number of tangents, making a living, etc., so I really haven’t done much with it until recently.I know this seems like a stretch, but I have become very interested in politics over the last 5-10 years, and am very concerned about the direction the country, and the world is taking.The human race faces at best an uncertain future, and, according to the majority of climate scientists, quite possibly extinction.What seems to be lacking most in our business leaders and politicians is a little thing called “empathy”.Nobody seems to care about anyone else not within their immediate family or sphere of influence, much less the fate of future generations.As long as they are OK, as long as they are comfortable,who cares about anyone else?That seems to be the current trend, the current way of thinking, especially here in the United States.

Empathy emanates from the right brain.It is a right brain attribute.Well, you can probably guess where this is going.In short, what the world needs most is a little right brain activation, a little more right brain thinking.What was that popular song “What the world needs now is love sweet love”?– aBurt Bacharach song from the mid-1960s if I recall.Unfortunately it is truer now than ever.

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